Welcome back to another season of rugby. Hope you all had a great Christmas & New Year’s holiday break and all geared up ready to go for an exciting 2018 season.

2018 promises to be a massive year of rugby in the Waikato. We have the HSBC World 7s Series coming to Hamilton for the first time in early February, World Rugby has produced a simplified law book that can be downloaded and available in the App Store, there have been some small changes to the WRU Club Competition format with the introduction of a City v Country match and many more new initiatives.

2018 will also see a new initiative with the WRRA hosting a Referee Season Launch in early March. This will be a great opportunity to catch up as a wider referee group after a good summer break. We will also complete Rugby Smart and Blue Card Training, will go through some season logistics, take a look into the new and simplified Law Book World Rugby as released for 2018. Any new members that may be interested in picking up the whistle are more than welcome and this would be a great opportunity for them to see and hear all about refereeing rugby in the Waikato.

The Sporty Online Referee Registrations are now open and you can register as a 2018 referee, please get online and do that, alternatively this can be done at the Season Launch.

All the best for 2018 and we look forward to working with you all in the upcoming months.

Associate Referee Course - 2017

Monday 15th May we hosted our first stand alone Associate Referee Course, previously in the past we have run Associate Referee Courses part of the Small Blacks Workshops.

For our first course we had a good turnout with over 25 participants, mostly were there to educate themselves so they can referee junior rugby on a Saturday morning. We did have a few participants attend looking to get involved with becoming a rugby referee. They plan to do some Assistant Referee duties early this season before getting into the middle.

Participants on the night covered laws of game; including applying advantage and getting the most out of that advantage. Some good in depth discussion was held around the tackle law, what players can and cant do at that phases of play. Basic hand signals to get them through a game, and the benefits of being clear with those hand signals.

Moving forward in 2018, we will be hosting a number of Associate Referee Courses around the province.

If you are keen to be involved and want to do some active refereeing this year it is not too late. Contact our Referee Education Officer Michael Winter on 021 805 890 or email michaelw@mooloo.co.nz

SANIX World Rugby Youth Rugby Tournament, Fukuoka - Japan

Written by Michael Winter

This year I was fortunate enough to attend the 2017 SANIX World Rugby Youth Tournament in Fukuoka, Japan.

This was the 18th edition of the SANIX World Rugby Youth Tournament, played between 16 First XV teams across 6 days of rugby. Teams competing in a pool format with 3 pool games, followed by a quarterfinal, semifinal & finals for all teams.

Teams this year came from England, France, Korea, New Zealand, Chinese Taipei, Fiji, Russia & South Africa, with a further 8 teams from around Japan competing. With two international teams alongside two Japanese teams in each pool, it made for close games throughout the tournament. All teams were based on sight at the Global Arena comple with an international team in the same building as a Japanese team.

Throughout my 5 referee appointments I got to experience refereeing teams from France, England, South Africa & the Fijians. All of which were great experiences and all of which play a very different style of rugby to what our First XV teams play. French were very typical French, very passionate and played with flare and were a very well structured side. Fijians were the total opposite, very unstructured, threw the ball around a lot and scored some very good long range tries. South Africa were a young side with an amazing first five kicker, funnily enough. He timed the ball very well and had a good eye for field position.

I was very impressed with the standard of the 8 Japanese sides. They play with some fantastic structure and generally pretty accurate with their game plan. Unfortunately for them, they can lack some size compared to some overseas teams.

Alongside myself, Australia, England & South Africa all sent over one referee. We lived in the same apartment for our time there, some good banter was had but some great rugby chat was also had with some good learnings.

The Japanese are amazing hosts. We were treated to a number of functions as special guests and feed a combination of traditional Japanese meals, along with more westernised foods.

This was an amazing experience for myself and am very grateful for being selected by NZR to have this opportunity.

Waikato Rugby Referees have 2018 Kit Confirmed

The WRRA Management Committee has recently meet and has confirmed the 2018 Referee Uniform.

These items will be available to purchase for our members who are paid up 2018 season members with their local Sub-Association.

Please refer to the attached document for clothing items and prices.

These items will be available to order. Referees will not be able to go to Kukri and place individual orders as one large bulk order will be completed for 2018.